In Leaked Video, Netanyahu Brags About Blocking Peace and Manipulating American Foreign Policy.

In A Leaked Video From 2001, Benjamin Netanyahu Laid Out His Intentions In Detail.

In my last article, I wrote about Benjamin Netanyahu blocking peace at every turn.

For a quick refresher, he has blocked a peace deal that would have ended the genocidal blockade on Gaza, a deal that would have freed all the hostages shortly after October 7th, and endless cease-fire deals around the current genocidal war in Gaza.

Most recently, the Israeli paper “The Times Of Israel” has reported that Hamas has offered to “enter a long-term truce with Israel,” including by “halting all military operations”, “ceding governing control of Gaza to an independent body of Palestinian technocrats”, “having all of the group’s weapons placed in a guarded warehouse for 10 or even 15 years” and by “returning of all remaining Israeli hostages in one batch” in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and the release of Palestinian political prisoners.

Despite this offer, the paper reported that Netanyahu has “reiterated his opposition to such a deal, asserting that Israel would not agree to end the war and withdraw from Gaza, even if that meant securing the release of all remaining 59 hostages”.

This strategy is nothing new for Bibi; in a little-seen 2001 video, he bragged about blocking the Oslo peace accords, attacking Palestinians, and manipulating Americans into supporting him doing so during his first 1996-1999 term as prime minister of Israel.

In a video clip where Netanyahu did not know the camera was rolling, he bragged to settlers in the West Bank about blocking the Oslo Accords," beating Palestinians up so it hurts so badly, until it’s unbearable,” and manipulating America into supporting him doing this.

Journalist Glenn Kessler, reporting on the video in 2010 for the Washington Post, noted that “Netanyahu also bragged how he undercut the peace process when he was prime minister during the Clinton administration,” quoting Netanyahu saying “They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords] I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue”

The Israeli journalist Liel Lebovitz noted at the time in Tablet magazine that Netanyahu was “belittling the Oslo peace accords as vulnerable to manipulation”.

Lebovitz noted that “Since the accords state that Israel would be allowed to hang on to predefined military zones in the West Bank, Netanyahu told his hosts that he could torpedo the accords by defining vast swaths of land as just that.”

In other words, he found a way around the Oslo Accords by labeling any desired land in the West Bank as a “predefined military zone” and expanding settlements.

Zionists often blame Palestinians for the failure of the Oslo Accords, ignoring this tape of Netanyahu bragging about manipulating his way around them in his first term as prime minister.

Lebovitz reported that Netanyahu bragged about manipulating his way into deciding which areas of the West Bank were considered “defined military zones,” writing:

Smiling, Netanyahu then recalled how he forced former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher to agree to let Israel alone determine which parts of the West Bank were to be defined as military zones. ‘They didn’t want to give me that letter,’ Netanyahu said, ‘so I didn’t give them the Hebron agreement [the agreement giving Hebron back to the Palestinians]. I cut the cabinet meeting short and said, ‘I’m not signing.’ Only when the letter came, during that meeting, to me and to Arafat, did I ratify the Hebron agreement. Why is this important? Because from that moment on, I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords.”

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy noted at the time that this showed “Israel is led by a man who doesn't believe the Palestinians and doesn't believe in the chance of an agreement with them, who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes.”

Aside from bragging about sabotaging the Oslo Accords, Netanyahu bragged about manipulating American foreign policy to his goals.

As Liel Lebovitz noted, in the video “Netanyahu dismisses American foreign policy as easy to maneuver, boasts of having derailed the Oslo accords with political trickery, and suggests that the only way to deal with the Palestinians is to ‘beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it’s unbearable’”.

He quoted Netanyahu saying, “I know what America is”, “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.”

In the video, Netanyahu brags about bringing Palestinians “to a state of panic that everything is collapsing”, along with bragging about beating Palestinians “not once but repeatedly, so it hurts so badly, until it’s unbearable”.

From blocking peace, to his plan to attack Palestinians, to his manipulation of American foreign policy, everything Netanyahu bragged about in this clip is now playing out in real time.

The full video can be seen below.

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